


location parameter

by callixto



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Background Femslash, F/F, Family Bonding, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callixto/pseuds/callixto
Summary: Maribelle gets to know her son and makes a choice.





	location parameter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaraJaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/gifts).



It’s after Maribelle’s nightly cup of tea with Lissa that she finds that boy stumbling around the camp.

Thinking about her successor and son makes her throat close up on her. Knowing that she survived the war - that she continued her line- _!_ It’s comforting, in a certain way, but her stomach churns nonetheless. The boy cried on her lap when the Shepherds rescued him, and she combed a hand through his familiar hair. She can see how this roughshod boy takes after her, wrists going limp and properly elegant when he’s pressured to bow.

That engagement ring sat comfortably on his calloused fingers when she pressed their hands together, and she wonders.

Brady smiles down at her, all looming height and a crooked, criminal’s smile. She grabs him by his ear on reflex, pulls him down to pat a hand against his face. “Really now, it’s nearly sundown. You oughtn’t wander like a common thief; you’ll scare the _life_ out of the sentries.” He apologizes properly enough, tacks a “-- Ma,” onto it when she scowls at him. She allows him to slip his hand into hers like a child, and takes him back to her own tent.

It comes off quite improper without the context that he’s her son, this sweet boy (who looks older than her! at least she’s aged well, she supposes) sleeping in a noblewoman’s tent - but there’s a talk they must have, and she won’t let shallow appearances eat away at her dignity.

Brady settles down on the dirt floor with crossed legs, and she sighs at him from her perch on the edge of her cot. She folds her hands together to keep them from shaking. “May I ask about your childhood, darling? You needn’t tell me if it hurts too badly, but I am curious about what I’ve done - what I will do? Goodness, this time travel is complicated.”

Her boy smiles, bemused. He twists that ring of hers around his finger, chews at his lower lip - she tuts at him, and he releases it. He’s hesitating, and she can’t help but worry at why.

“Is it that awful?” she asks, and he shakes his head fiercely.

“Just… it’s embarrassing, Ma - getting to tell you tales like you always told me. I missed you so much,” Brady gets out, and his voice breaks. Something in Maribelle’s chest twinges, and she slips to her knees next to him. He curls into her chest like a much younger child, all his threatening demeanor falling away. She doesn’t know, now, how he ever scared her. This sweet-hearted boy, staff in hand - she’s more proud of raising him than of anything else she’s accomplished.

Her burning questions don’t feel so important when she has her son to comfort.  She’s curious, certainly, but she won’t press him if he doesn’t feel up to it.

By the time he’s calmed, his hand is sweaty in her own. He holds their twined hands up to the light - his skin is a bit darker than her own, but they have matching staff callouses. His ring is biting into her own empty finger, and he prods at it with a lack of understanding.

“Where’s your ring, Ma?” asks Brady, and she’s not certain how to reply. She’d recognized him by his enunciations - by Lucina throwing her arms around him and dragging him to his mother to hang his head and introduce himself - in this time, she’s not even engaged. That was what she’d wanted to ask, after all --  who she’d chosen, and if it had been her own choice or a loveless marriage to continue her line.

Maribelle is no ingenue. The thought of love flutters high in her chest, ever a blushing damsel at heart; meeting her darling son has started to soften the hopes she thought irreparable. Surely no child borne of necessity would be so loved? She hesitates, and she sees his eyes spark with confusion. “I thought you were havin’ one of your special tea parties. Ain’t you and Ma together yet?”

His eyes cloud with worry, and Maribelle’s knocked for a loop. “I -- what??” she stammers out, and her face flushes pink. Lissa is her darling, her best friend in the world - she would happily die for her sake, and she thinks of her with nothing but fondness. And yet, surely she’s not picking up the correct implications from what Brady says?

Marrying Lissa would be a dream come true, and yet she’s never thought that in so many words. She buries her face in her hands, feeling the heat rise to her face. Brady’s hand alights hesitant on her hair, heavy and comforting.   

“I, uh. I just assumed, I mean - it ain’t really any of my business, right? I’m from another timeline entirely, so.. I guess it’d only be natural if some things are different.”

 _I don’t want that,_ Maribelle thinks, and it feels like she’s choking on it. For something she’s never let herself think to mean so much to her - for that ideal to warm her from the inside out and make her fear it never coming to pass - she feels silly, abruptly, as much a child as she’s ever been.

\-- There’s so much she wants to know, but she won’t lean on her own son like this.

She struggles to compose herself, forcing her back straight and her face wiped clean of emotion. “Of course it is, darling,” she says, and means it with her entire heart. “Just because this isn’t what became your world doesn’t mean you don’t matter, and I did ask. You needn’t worry about my feelings.” Maribelle ends the conversation there, and holds her son close to her chest.

She doesn’t believe in fate, not exactly. There’s nothing about that world that’s guaranteed - that _must_ happen. She must believe that, for she knows what happened to their kingdom at the end. But knowing what could be has sparked something in her. Now that it’s occurred to her to think of Lissa in that way, she can’t let go of it.

Maribelle does nothing half-heartedly, nor does she wish to force the matter. She simply keeps that want heavy in her heart, an eye to how she acts and thinks of Lissa - it seems so obvious, now that she knows, but it would be meaningless without deciding for herself. Her first priority will always be for their survival, and now to care for her son. She lets their love grow, cautious and sweet, and when one day after the war another boy shows up with a bright smile and the Ylissean brand -- well, she’s hardly surprised, and the joy on both her now-wife’s face and her son to meet his brother, finally, solidifies her love into a shining warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> i recognized your username from fe_fest, and your prompt was too good to pass up! it's only a treat and not quite slow burn, but i hope you enjoy.


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